India provides loan aid to the Maldives

As special assistance at a moment of serious financial difficulties for the Maldives, India has provided her with loan-aid amounting to $20 million. This is an amount equivalent to some 308 million in Rufiyaa, the local currency of the Maldives.

Indian news website The Economic Times reported on the authority of Indian High Commissioner for the Maldives, D. M. Mulay, that the stand-by loan was handed over to the Maldives by him a few days back.

No reports have been made about the repayment period or interest rates of the loan.

In an interview to The Economic Times of India, D. M. Mulay has also said that the State Bank of India had extended the period for repayment of treasury bonds bought by the Maldivian government from the bank as well, totaling some $50 million.

Financial position of the Maldives has declined, and the nation has been driven onto the verge of insolvency by the corrupt and inefficient administration of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and its leader Mohamed Nasheed during the last 3 years.

The Auditor General has, over the last few months, published audit reports of Government departments, unearthing huge cases of corruption and maladministration which cost the nation hundreds of millions in the period that followed Nasheed’s assumption of power in November 2008.